Lynn Coutts didn’t see this chapter of the story coming. Player, yes. Coach, sure.

But becoming the head of a college athletic department?

“My goal was not to be an athletic director,” she said. “But if you’re in an industry … (and) you do your job, you do the best you can in whatever job you’re in, somebody will tap you on the shoulder. And I do believe this, you have to get yourself out of your comfort zone.”

Coutts, a former softball player, coach and administrator at the University of Maine, got that tap this summer in the form of an offer to become the athletic director at UMass Lowell. Coutts, 59, took over in July and is the first woman to hold that position at the school.

Becoming an athletic director wasn’t a move Coutts saw coming when she began her career in college athletics as a softball player for the Black Bears before graduating in 1987. She also had a coaching stint at UMaine from 2011-15. But as she jumped into the administrative side, first as UMaine’s senior associate director of athletics and then as the University of Denver’s deputy athletic director, it was a move that made sense.

“I just wanted to stay in the industry, I do love it,” Coutts said. “If you could be an administrator before you were a coach, that would be really helpful. Now I see the bigger picture, and I think I have more of an impact in administration than I did in coaching. Coaching was just my team. Now I can have an impact on more people, and I love people.

“I like to learn about different sports, I like to learn about different people and look at things from different perspectives.”

UMass Lowell Chancellor Julie Chen said Coutts’ wide range of experience made her a strong candidate.

“It certainly doesn’t hurt that she was recruited to the University of Denver and was part of two national championships in ice hockey,” she said. “Those are all things from the resume that make you go ‘Huh. This looks like somebody who’s got all the great experience we want to come here and elevate our Division I program to the next level.'”

Coutts was hired July 11, and then the chaos began. She had to find an apartment in Massachusetts and uproot her life, all while working to touch base with her new coaches and get herself acquainted with her staff.

“Right now, it’s a little bit like a fire hose,” Coutts said in August. “I try to be present, be where my feet are and take a breath. I think that’s really helpful. I know I can’t do everything in one week, but as a coach myself, I always feel like ‘OK, I need to make some adjustments.’ So there are a few little wins. I think the wins are relationships, getting to know people and being present.”

Part of the transition to the Lowell job was getting there. In August, Coutts drove 30 hours from Colorado along with her husband, Mike, a former UMaine baseball player who followed her as the Black Bears’ softball coach from 2015-21.

“We did about 10 hours (per day), one day of 12 hours, we just kept going,” she said. “I love to drive. I should have been an 18-wheeler driver. I can drive forever. It really doesn’t bother me. We’ve done it before. We’ll do it again in June, when we move out.”

Once in Lowell, Coutts got to work acclimating to a job that’s more about oversight than hands-on work.

“I kind of was the communicator in the (Denver) department, like if people needed things, I could get stuff done,” she said. “Coaches would come to me, I’d work with the AD, I was a sports administrator for hockey, so I traveled throughout the postseason and worked with our development staff.

“I had more time to talk with people and work through problems. Here now, I have to empower my staff to be able to do those things, and someone to (do) what I was doing. … I can’t get caught in that.”

In addition to maintaining the health of the athletic programs, Coutts will be responsible for managing the business relationships that have become crucial to college sports.

“You have to understand legally how things are changing, with things like name, image and likeness, with the transfer portal. The landscape is changing very rapidly,” Chen said. “(You need) somebody who can see that and say ‘OK, how do I create a program that is going to be successful for the student-athletes, for the coaches, for the staff?’

“Because of (NIL), there’s what they call collectives being formed, so it’s getting donors and things like that to be willing to support your programs, and also to help our coaches in recruiting and understanding how to convey the message of why a student-athlete wants to come here.”

That part will be different. The feel of the school, however, hasn’t been.

“I can’t do everything in one week, but … there are a few little wins. I think the wins are relationships, getting to know people, being present,” Coutts said. “I’m trying to meet the people who love it here, and I want to know why. … It’s a really, really small-knit community in a way, so a little bit feeling like Orono. The people love what they do, and they’re passionate.”

Coutts had to do it herself for the first month, but the rest of her life has been filling in. The University of Rhode Island announced Friday that Mike Coutts is the university’s new softball head coach. Their 26-year-old son, Jackson, has been playing minor league baseball since 2021 – first in the Washington Nationals system and more recently in independent leagues – but lives in Rhode Island in the offseason.

In any case, Coutts knows she’s ready for another new challenge.

“I knew I wanted to try this,” she said. “I’ve always said yes, and then sometimes I say ‘Oh my gosh, what am I doing?’ … I like to go through a little adversity, and I like to make a difference and have an impact.”